Watching the World Sleep Vermillion
by Alithea
Summary: AU, sequel to Artistic Veggies Platters. Juri steps into an art gallery and runs into a familar face... her own.


**Title: Watching the World Sleep Vermillion  
Rating: PG-13  
Characters are not mine I am just borrowing.  
Characters from Utena, Gundam Wing, and Noir.  
A/N: This is a direct sequel to my fic Artistic Veggie Platters. With an added note that is this definitely Juri from the manga.**

It started with a chance visit to a local art gallery. Juri had been shopping with a group of friends. It wasn't something she particularly wanted to be doing, but knowing her penchant for brooding her friends, two women who it was impossible to say no to, had insisted she accompany them.

They had just stepped out of a large department store. Juri carried a small shopping bag that held her only purchase for the day, a single bottle of perfume. The others held larger bags and tugged her along a side street and into the Noir Gallery. It was a larger establishment than Juri expected it to be. There was a main room and two smaller adjacent to it, and then there was a small door that might have been the entrance to the owner's office, but it could have just as easily been a broom closet.

Juri's companions were taking their time in the main gallery, walking slowing from each painting and on to the next. Juri scanned the artwork quickly and moved into the other rooms. She didn't have a great love for art, or at least not the modern art that the gallery seemed to specialize in. She found little pleasure in the undefined medium being a woman of strict common sense and organization. She thought paintings and sculptures should be of actual things, not just random lines or spatters of paints. A toothbrush standing on end was not her idea of art. She preferred classical paintings. She preferred looking at a picture and knowing exactly what it was she was looking at.

She breezed into the next room and was immediately seized by paralyzing recognition. Eyes the same shade as her own stared back at her from a canvas, the portrait was not exactly a portrait. The images were blurred and abstract enough that she couldn't actually say it was herself being displayed there, but it was clearly herself being displayed there. She shut her eyes and then looked at the artist's name. She wanted to be surprised, but memory was cruel, and so she was not.

Her friends eventually made their way into the room. They gasped and then one of them put a hand on her shoulder. Juri looked over at the woman and grimaced, before stepping out of the room and out of the gallery onto the sidewalk.

"Was it really meant to be you?"

Juri turned around and faced her friend, the one who had attempted to offer a comforting touch. She shrugged.

"You could probably sue for unauthorized use of your image." The woman said, again trying to be of comfort.

"It is meant to be me, Relena." Then she thought over the other comment and sighed. "I hadn't thought she'd still think of me."

"Who?"

"The artist of the painting." Juri blinked and then realized she hadn't actually looked at the painting as a whole. She turned and marched back into the room. She needed to see it again. She needed to see it with some of the shock worn away.

The canvas was fairly large, taking up most of the wall. There was an abstract collection of buildings that looked all at once like a castle and a school campus. There she was, abstract form, except for the eyes piercing and set, yielding a rapier and in motion. She was charging, dueling. There was another form on the canvas, though it was set far on the opposite corner. It was the vague shadow of the fencer's foe. Juri thought she recognized the shadow, but she didn't need to really. She remembered the day, and the title of the piece was also a healthy reminder.

The painting was called, "Regaining Her Honor".

Juri took a deep breath, and then glanced around at the other paintings in the room, all by the same artist, that ghost from her past. Here and there were more memories from the past, but there were also new memories. There were scenes cut from pieces of the artist's life that Juri was not a part of. She was being exorcised in those paintings. She was being banished to make room for the newer things she saw.

She wasn't sure how to take it.

Her friends watched her curiously, and then Juri turned and stepped out of the room again. She walked over to a young woman in a white sweater with short dark hair.

"The artist, Miss Takatsuki," Juri began quickly. "Does she come here often?"

"It really depends on the season." The young woman said. "She's going to be up at Orpheus's Den, the club on twelfth, tonight. There's a collaborative performance art piece going on. It should be interesting."

Juri nodded, and saw that the young woman was recognizing her, or perhaps the young woman was just curious about her.

"The tone of your voice…" The young woman began to say and then trailed off. "Never mind it's not important." She paused and then added, confirming Juri's suspicions at being recognized, "She's got a date, but it's hardly serious."

"I see." She shook her head. She needed to think.

*****

The club was smallish. It had a decent sized main dance floor and bar, and an upstairs that looked down on the main floor with a few tables, a small kitchen that served random bar fare, and another bar. It was packed full with people. Some where dancing, most were just watching the stage as the DJ played music. Just behind him there was a large white sheet and a young man with green hair took paint from a large bucket and then made brush strokes in time with the electronic music. Just above the stage and off to the sides where there were a few more chairs and tables digital images were being displayed that also seemed to be moving along to the music. It was a stack of performances and from her table upstairs Juri wasn't exactly sure how she felt about the art she was seeing.

The club made her feel decidedly out of place. It wasn't the type of establishment she would normally go to. She preferred quiet bars that often had a jazz pianist, or at least the idea of one. She wasn't sure she ever saw anyone at her regular haunt actually play the piano that was there. Everyone in the club that evening was less dressed than she was and generally had multi-colored hair, piercings, and tattoos. She felt like a square, and in that setting she certainly was.

There was a certain snobbishness that was probably visible as she sipped a Manhattan from a plastic cup instead of a Martini glass. It was a club though, she mused that it made sense that glassware was probably an unwise thing to have in building full of writhing and dancing young adults. As she mulled her thoughts over she wondered when she had gotten so old at such a young age.

The performance on stage came to a close and then someone, probably the event's coordinator, got on stage and talked into the microphone. It was a jumble of thank yous and something about the next set of performers that Juri didn't catch all of except for a very important name, Shiori Takatsuki.

The sheet from the previous artist was carefully removed and the replaced. Juri stood up and went over to look down at the stage. She hadn't seen Shiori since high school. The girl was almost completely unchanged except that her hair was a little longer and under the lights looked a dark purple and red. Shiori was holding two cans of spray paint and was doing some stretches as the DJ got in place and set up some last minute equipment.

Juri could barely hear the words of the DJ as he muttered into the microphone. He said Shiori's name and she waved to the crowd. The music began and the digital images on the screen above the stage were a collage of stock footage fencing matches, and an old black and white movie of some fairytale, mixing and spinning with colors.

She looked at Shiori who was dancing and shaking up the cans of spray paint. The young woman took the colors to the white sheet as the music went on. Random lines and shapes appearing with no sense of order, except that as the first song ended it was very clear that there was a true shape, there was an order. The orange and bright pink paint created a surreal crown. And the set went on in the same way until at last the DJ had finished and there was a complete work of art behind him.

The crowd cheered and Juri quickly made her way out of the club. She leaned in against the wall. The next set was just beginning and she could feel the pounding of the bass through it. She shut her eyes and then opened them when she heard a familiar voice.

The girl stopped mid-sentence and then walked up to Juri.

"You showed up." Shiori said.

"Were you expecting me?"

"No. I didn't think you'd come." She grinned, "I owe Kirika five bucks now."

Juri arched an eyebrow.

"Look, about the paintings-"

"It's fine." She said quickly. "They're well done."

Shiori nodded. "Okay." She looked Juri over and then smiled, "You are totally out of your element. That's a change."

"What?"

"I never thought I'd ever catch you outside your comfort zone. You always stayed within the lines back in school." Shiori replied quickly.

"I stepped out of them for you."

"I know," she took a deep breath and then said, "but you were miserable, and I was…" She shook her head. "I pushed you back in."

"Harshly, as I recall." Juri stated.

Shiori grinned, "I'm leaving for the night. I need to grab dinner. Would you-"

"No. No, I can't. I just needed to see…you."

"That's what I figured." She turned away and then snapped back, "You should follow your bliss Juri. The money sucks, but you'd be happy."

"How do you know I'm not?"

"Because you still have that same sad look in your eyes. I used to think it made you look so beautiful, but all it really does is hide you from everyone else."

"I don't need lectures from you," Juri said harshly.

Shiori nodded. "Then don't listen to me."

Juri watched as Shiori stomped off. She took the arm of one of the female bouncers and then vanished down the street.

Juri shut her eyes and leaned in against the wall. She took in a deep breath and walked back into the club and bought herself another ten dollar drink. She found a vacant table and sat down. The club, the paintings, the conversation she had just had with Shiori it was all so abstract and dreamlike. She didn't want to wake yet. She liked the dream, it reminded her of what she had always wanted. It reminded her of what she denied herself by being sensible about everything.

She took another deep breath and then stared at her phone as it began to ring. She looked at the number and ignored it. She rubbed at the gold band around her finger and gulped at her drink. The phone stopped buzzing for a moment and then started up again. The name on the phone threatening to wake her from the dream she was in. She picked up the phone and threw it into her purse. Ignoring the calls and the name she couldn't deal with just yet, not after just seeing Shiori. She just didn't know if she could explain it to him, or what to say when Ruka asked her where she was.

End.


End file.
